http://www.businessinsider.com/barney-frank-says-fannie-and-freddies-lending-standards-are-too-high-2009-6

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BR: Fixed !

Thanks for the link. Guess I wasn’t I can take off my tin foil hat now. Sounds like the tea party movement redux.

BTW, completely OT, anyone seen this. It’s really weird and Aldrin’s site says you can download hte sone from iTunes.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f7a26d7505/making-of-buzz-aldrin-s-rocket-experience-w-snoop-dogg-and-talib-kweli

People have the wrong idea about appraisals.. they want this one number for the laser accurate value of an item when it is much more an art than science. People believe that when you have a buyer and a seller come together that defines an open market transaction and the appraisal should really just rubber stamp that. That would be fine if the buyer was using THEIR money.. they are using the banks and if a buyer can only buy with uber-leverage and marginal qualifying the bank better make sure of the value of the collateral because their is a very high likelihood that they are getting it back. Because there is this “play” in the numbers the banks should be extremely conservative. You have multiple levels of leverage, the borrower and the bank. Mistakes will be costly with that kind of leverage.

The banks need to be sure the appraiser is working for them and not anyone else in the transaction. The communication barrier is essential. They can tweak HVCC if they are really worried about out of area appraisers and make adjustments. I’ll have a post up later tonight regarding a rumored email going around about the NARs plan of action to get HVCC set aside. I fully expect it to succeed. You can check it out in about a half hour at

There was a front page story here in the Houston Chronicle about some speculator whose deal fell through because he got some schmuck to agree to pay $240k for his investment but the appraisal only cam in about $200k. Of course it was all the new rule’s fault and the bank’s fault; it wasn’t because he paid too much and probably is hard up for cash.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/realestate/6485592.html

Later, the local get-rich-with-real-estate show spent the whole hour whining about this “problem.”

What pathetic tools!